Danish / English
Teaching Staff
Ole Brekke
founder and teacher
Educated Dell ‘Arte School 1976, Ecole Jacques Lecoq 1978. Founder and director of The Commedia School in Copenhagen since 1983. Educated in Shakespeare texts with Cecily Berry, John Barton and others, movement with Axis Syllabus and others. Along with directing The Commedia School, Ole has conducted workshops in many countries on all continents often focusing in disaster areas with victims of natural disasters and refugees from war.
Ruth Lerche
DIRECTOR and teacher
Educated from Ecole International de Theatre Jacques Lecoq (1996) in Paris. Dramateacher at The Commedia School since 2002. She has worked as freelance comedienne, performer and drama teacher for a plethora of theatre groups and institutions in Denmark and abroad (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Japan, Egypt etc.). Ruth has for several years explored site-specific theatre for and with children.
Jakob Bentsen
Mask and movement Teacher
Jakob Bentsen is a Danish perform, he was educated in the 70ties at École Jacques Lecoq and has since been touring the world with several companies including MUMMENSCHANZ which performed on Broadway in New York. Jakob has worked with multiple companies, both performing and instructing. Jakob has also been teaching abroad and in Denmark like at the Cirkus school AMOK and the Royal Danish State Theater School. Besides this Jakob is also a painter, sculptor, and mask-maker.
Troels Hagen Findsen
Teacher
Danish actor, performer/creator, writer, director and musician. He is Co- Artistic Director of the award-winning, Copenhagen based Out of Balanz. Troels is a graduate of The Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris and has trained with members of The SITI Company and Complicité. He has served on the artistic board of Forsøgsstationen and as a part of the faculty of The Academy of Modern Circus (AMOC) and The Academy of Untamed Creativity (AFUK). He has taught workshops extensively in both Denmark and abroad at venues including: The Barbican in London, The Theatre Center in Toronto, and The Masca Festival in Bucharest. In 2012 Troels received a research and work grant for his research in autofictive storytelling and performance from The Danish Art Foundation’s Statens Kunstfonds Film- og Scenekunstudvalg.
Jonathan Paul Cook
teacher
Jonathan Paul Cook has been a teacher at Skuespillerskolen ved Odense Teater (now DDSKS Odense) since 1984.
In a career spanning more than five decades, Jonathan Paul Cook has worked as actor, director, playwright and teacher in sixteen countries. As he likes to put it, his work has taken him from Vancouver to Viljandi, from Tampere to Tabarka, From San Diego to Slovenia, from New Orleans to both Nykøbing Falster and Nykøbing Mors!
In the 1970’s Jonathan co-founded the internationally recognised Footsbarn Theatre, Cornwall, UK, now based in France, and the Dell’ Arte Players Company, Blue Lake, California.
Janusz F. Komodowski
teacher
First active theatre collaboration -1982. Stage debut on professional stage -1984. Educated from College of Culture Animation, Opole -1986 (place of Jerzy Grotowski´s start-up) and Teatr Stu, Krakow 1987-1989. The Commedia School -1992. Feldenkrais Method Teacher – Paris Training 2006. Freelance performer and physical theatre Animator. Regardless of the circumstances, enjoys entering through the back door with passion. Teacher of The Commedia School since 1996.
Lukas Rakcy
Feldenkrais teacher
Lukas is educated in contemporary dance & choreography at the State Theater School in Copenhagen. Apart from being a freelance performer, dancer and art-maker, Lukas has completed the 4-year education in the Feldenkrais method.
As Lukas put it “I will be teaching this beautiful approach to human learning and moving. I love sharing this work with performing artists, where it can be a tool for self-care as well as expanding ones way of expressing oneself in front of an audience.”
Lukas Rakcy
Feldenkrais teacher
Lukas is educated in contemporary dance & choreography at the State Theater School in Copenhagen. Apart from being a freelance performer, dancer and art-maker, Lukas has completed the 4-year education in the Feldenkrais method.
As Lukas put it “I will be teaching this beautiful approach to human learning and moving. I love sharing this work with performing artists, where it can be a tool for self-care as well as expanding ones way of expressing oneself in front of an audience.”
Jette Vejrup
Teacher
Jette is born and raised at the Westcoast of Denmark. She studied at Århus Theater Academy and at the international theatre-school Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris.
She worked and toured with Theater de Complicity with “Anything for a Quiet life”, nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award, played Commedia dell´arte in the streets of New Orleans and taught at The Commedia School in its early years. She settled down in Slovenija, where she had family and over the years got an outstanding career as lead actress at the great ensemble-theater Mestno Gledališče Ljubljana in both classical and modern drama. She has received great acknowledgment for her work in Slovenia.
Tuba Keleş
Teacher
Tuba is educated from the Physical Theater and Comedy School in Istanbul (2015) and from The Commedia School in 2018 and with more than 10 years of experience in theater she has been involved in diverse international projects as both performer, director and playwriter. In 2022 Tuba have taken courses of Red Nose Intensive and Devising Theatre from Helikos School in Italy and lately she has been involved in the International Clown Collective who is organizing festivals in different countries. Here she has different roles of facilitator, performer and director.
Guest Teachers
Tuba Keleş
Teacher
Tuba is educated from the Physical Theater and Comedy School in Istanbul (2015) and from The Commedia School in 2018 and with more than 10 years of experience in theater she has been involved in diverse international projects as both performer, director and playwriter. In 2022 Tuba have taken courses of Red Nose Intensive and Devising Theatre from Helikos School in Italy and lately she has been involved in the International Clown Collective who is organizing festivals in different countries. Here she has different roles of facilitator, performer and director.
Jef Johnson
Teacher
Performer, Director, Public Speaker, Foolosopher, Jef Johnson is considered a leader in the field of performance and contemporary clown. His research and practice are based in “state of clown” – empathy, naive experience, creative consciousness, “the emerging game,” patterned behavior, and social identity. Jef has conducted over 500 masterclasses and workshops worldwide. His work has been commissioned by many universities and companies, including: Cirque du Soleil, Slava’s Snowshow, Camp Broadway and many others.
Jaime Mears
Teacher
Jaime is a Sydney born actress and Churchill Fellow with over twenty years of experience in Theatre, Television and film. Jaime has taught for some of the largest Drama Schools in Australia and Portugal and has taught workshops for artists in the UK, Russia, Germany, Denmark and Hungary. Jaime works as a professional hospital clown with Operação Nariz Vermelho since 2018 . She has also taught for Hospital Clown Organisations in Portugal, Russia and Denmark. She regularly performs as an idiot in order to prevent herself from taking her career too seriously.
Karl Brekke
Teacher
Karl Brekke is an England-based performer, dancer, and choreographer. He has collaborated with renowned theatres, including Complicité, Junk Ensemble, and Sweetshop Revolution. In 2022 he co-founded the company Barking Trees with Faith Prendergast to begin to explore making their own work in a collaborative way. They have performed excerpts of their current work Simorgh Soup in the UK, Denmark and Turkey.
Linnea happonen
Teacher
Linnea Happonen is a theatre maker (performer, director, teacher) – MA from the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU), department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre, and also a graduate of the Commedia School, Copenhagen. She is artistic director of Krepsko Theatre Group, founded in Prague in 2001, and still active. Her performances are mostly non-text-based, emphasize visual expression and atmosphere, and often incorporate object theatre, puppetry and other disciplines. She has worked in many formats, from tiny solo shows to cabarets for 20 performers, and created numerous site-specific projects with different ensembles.
Faith Prendergast
Teacher
Faith grew up in Colorado, USA, when she began dancing at a young age at a local dance school. She went on to train at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance (2009-2010) and then acquired a BA(Hons) at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance (2010-2013). In 2022 she co-founded the company Barking Trees with Karl Brekke to begin to explore making their own work in a collaborative way. They have performed excerpts of their current work Simorgh Soup in the UK, Denmark and Turkey.
Petra Föhrenbach
Teacher
Specialized in physical theatre; social history and body language of the Commedia dell’Arte; working with masks as documents of the cultural memory.
Finbarr Ryan
Teacher
Mask maker and performer.
Katrina Bugaj
teacher
Katrina Bugaj is a Copenhagen-based American director, performer/creator, writer, researcher-practitioner and teacher. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of Out of Balanz. Under her direction, Out of Balanz was named one of the 11 most innovative physical theatre companies, alongside such companies as The SITI Company and DV8, in the performing arts trade magazine backstage.com. Katrina is an alumni member of the prestigious Lincoln Center Director’s Lab in New York City and her work has been performed in over 15 countries throughout Europe, North America and Asia, including The John Houseman Theatre off-Broadway and The Barbican in London.